And in the War, There are Boys
by ilurandir
Summary: Running for their lives, Severus and Regulus - paired together on a mission from the Dark Lord - find something of a save place - however unstable and impermanent it may be. Please read and review


It was raining. And the boy was an idiot.

And, Severus had to remind himself as he caught Regulus Black's cold hand in his own and hauled him to his feet, that he was still just that. A boy.

They were running, not letting go of each other, because they were running blind. He couldn't, as they said, see his hand in front of his face, but he knew that the way out of the woods was more or less straight, and that it ascended. The spell around them couldn't last that long, but they had to make it out before the Order of the Phoenix blocked their exit.

They both stumbled as they hit that steep incline, their boots slipping on dirt and debris and the wet stones, and suddenly they broke out into a plateau of land and dead leaves, and ran, which sounded strangely loud after the silence of just the grass underfoot where all he had been able to hear was his and Regulus's ragged breathing, their rapid footsteps and his own heart pounding in his ears.

Perhaps, normally, he would have let go of his hand. Perhaps – but while he never admitted it to himself any human contact that was not vicious or guiding he clung to, because it was so rare for him. And Regulus's fingers were wrapped around his so tight he was sure he would have to stop simply to pry him off and they couldn't stop. Not until they had lost the men on their trail.

As they ran, stumbling and sliding in the wet ground, soaked to the spine, Severus thought back – the Order tonight, thankfully was as young as they were and therefore fairly matched. The blackout spell had been a good idea - or might have been - if he hadn't known their way out. And in the end it had benefited them more, him and Regs, because now the Order had no idea who they were fighting. They couldn't see through all that pitch dark before their eyes either.

But he'd heard Black's voice. Sirius's, and Regulus, the fucking idiot, he'd stopped and turned around. It had held them up a second too long. "There!" someone had shouted, and sent them running like rats to the sewers.

Regulus went down, and that was when he, Severus, had caught his hand.

The gesture, he had to admit, had surprised him a little. In school he would have been intent on escaping on his own, and only that. But out here, in the middle of nowhere, following the orders of the Dark Lord, and with only this stupid, frightened boy as a 'partner', he had done it.

And like it or not, despite his hated of working in partners and groups in school - unless it was with Lily Evans or Arthur Weasley who was nice to him, even if he was awkward and a little strange (he talked about batteries a lot) - he didn't want to be doing these missions solo. The woods, unlike the castle, stretched on for uncountable miles and the nights were very long.

They hit a thick underbrush, suddenly on no clear path, and using his one free arm, and his shoulders, head down, they fought through the branches and the undergrowth. Silence was not an issue here. If they were caught, they were dead. And to not be caught they had to go fast. When they hit the river they charged right through it. He went down, the rocks at the bottom were covered in algae and slippery, and he slammed his shin hard off of a rock, giving a cry of pain that echoed through the rain. Regulus fell hard beside him, pulled back by their hands, still connected.

Gasping in pain, Severus got to his feet, sharp splitting pains shooting up and down his entire leg. Merlin, what if it was broken? They climbed the bank on the far side and tried to run. He couldn't. Cursing and spitting under his breath, still clinging to each other they found something like a path and walked as quickly as they could, Regulus supporting the majority of his weight which, admittedly, after a neglected childhood, wasn't much. Although Regulus had always been weak, and somewhat sickly - prone to colds and trivial ailments. And so their process was slow. After half an hour or so, the pain began to fade. They began to run again, as quietly as they could. The trees were sparser here. They must be near a clearing.

It was nearly morning when they stopped, so exhausted they were almost in a state of half-sleep. Severus looked down at their hands, still linked between them. There was a whip-like mark on the back of his knuckles from a branch and slowly he untangled their fingers. He actually made a little noise of pain as he flexed his hand, it had been cramped in that position for so long, and so tightly.

Shaking, Regulus met Severus's eyes for the first time since they'd heard his brother's voice voice. Both of them were still soaking wet, but the rain had stopped and dawn was coming in grey, silhouetting the tops of the trees against the sky. A few hundred yards ahead, there was a barn. Upon further inspection, it was crumbling - it's front warped and caving in so much that they had to combine their strength just to pull the doors open, staining their palms brown with rust from the handle.

Severus silently cast secrecy spells around them to hide them from any prying eyes, then dried his robes, but not Regulus's. He had to learn to take care of himself and he hated that the Dark Lord made them partners so that he ended up being the sodding babysitter.

They sat crosslegged, facing each other on the musty straw and lit their wands inside and placed them on the ground between them. In the pale yellow light Severus could see that the boy's face was cut to pieces from the branches of the trees. Blood had dried in a little stream around his left eye from a cut in his eyebrow, alongside his nose and to the corner of his mouth. . Regulus crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head, his hood coming down to shield his face.

"You almost killed us back there," Severus told him, without malice, but without mollycoddling either. He had to know the seriousness of his stupidity.

"Yes," Regulus whispered sounding for all the world like the rich spoiled brat that he was - not the type to go running through the woods. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect-"

"Black will do anything to be a rebel against your family – joining Dumbledore's little group is something you should have expected from him."

"It just surprised me."

"Well we can't bloody risk any more of your being surprised," he hissed, his voice getting rougher as he pulled his robes up and rolled up the leg of his trousers. The fabric was stuck to the edges of the cut where he'd fell on the rock. There was a deep gouge but the bone wasn't showing. He muttered a spell to seal up the wound and let the fabric fall back over it.

There was a silence that stretched for about fifteen minutes, maybe longer.

"I'm sorry," Regulus said again after Severus had extinguished his wand and lay down on his back on the straw. His voice was even softer this time.

"Get some sleep. We can't apparate like this," Severus said without looking at him, turning onto his side away from the boy. After a few more minutes the light from Regulus's wand went out and he felt the boy lay down against him, their backs together, the gentle, cautious press of his spine against his own. His robes were still wet and Severus could feel him shivering.

With a sigh, he turned to him and murmured the incantation to dry the other boy's robes, then, clutching his wand in his right hand tightly between their bodies, he wrapped his arm around Regulus's back, and as the sun finally crested over the hill.

The light would filter through the slats in the barn's cracked sides to find the two boys curled into one another like puppies, dark heads tucked close together - both of them too pale, too thin. Only boys. Before he'd fallen asleep, Severus had thought that here, for once, he felt something close to contentment - curled in close to another person who's fingers were closed in the fabric of his shirt near his belly. A kind of physical comfort he'd never known before, or understood.

In a year's time, Regulus Black would be dead, and Severus would have lost yet another person that had meant something to him.


End file.
